Dr. Simona Raluca Gradinaru

With the rise of the ecosystem services concept, urban nature has gained significant value. Numerous studies have been conducted to delineate both the dependent and independent variables to consider when evaluating the regulating, provisioning, and supporting ecosystem services. Concerning the provisioning of cultural ecosystem services, urban green spaces operate in accordance with the ways people engage with them. These interactions are shaped by the design of green spaces and the cultural backgrounds of the population. In this study, we aimed to identify the various interactions between urban residents and specific small public urban green spaces, to evaluate people’s perceptions of the services they offer, and to determine which urban green spaces are deemed suitable by residents for enhancing ecosystem service provision. Employing a comparative approach, we assessed the same green spaces, i.e., pocket parks and street alignments, in the cities of Hamedan (Iran) and Bucharest (Romania), both of which have inhabitants with distinct cultural backgrounds. We administered similar surveys in the two cities and compiled a dataset of the responses. Employing cluster analysis and statistical analysis, we unveiled similarities and disparities in terms of interactions with green spaces in the two cities. Our findings demonstrate that although interactions with the chosen small public urban green spaces are comparable in Hamedan and Bucharest, the desires for future expansion of green spaces differ between the cities. These findings hold importance for practitioners and decision-makers, affirming that universal solutions for managing urban green spaces are non-existent, and that strategies should instead be tailored to the beneficiaries of such spaces.

Cities and urban regions have become central to ensuring a sustainable future. Many regions employ strategic spatial planning, a transformative and integrative public-sector-led activity, to create a coherent spatial development strategy in order to pursue sustainable development. Due to its encompassing, cross-sectoral qualities, landscape science is expected to strengthen nature-related aspects of urban planning. The aim of this paper is thus to assess the role of landscape in contemporary strategic spatial planning. This study is based on content analysis of the strategic spatial plans of 18 European urban regions. Plans were assessed following a framework that focuses on how plans took advantage of landscape’s integrative power, how plans are based in knowledge on functioning of landscape systems, and how plans show the contribution of landscapes to human well-being. The findings show that landscape science contributes considerably to strategic planning. Overall, the strategic plans of European urban regions had a strong anthropocentric perspective on landscapes. Most of the plans are based on knowledge about landscape functioning and show the contribution of landscapes to human well-being. However, only few use the full potential of the integrative power of landscapes in terms of governance processes. Based on our analysis, we identified research needs and suggested recommendations for future strategic planning with the aim of strengthening nature-related aspects in strategic spatial planning.

The conversion of open space to bu Planning evaluation ilt land is a key feature of urban-rural transformations. In many countries, urban sprawl represents the dominant mode of urban growth. Against this background, urban growth management plays a crucial role in mediating between diverse spatial requirements and curbing sprawl-like land-use patterns, but its effectiveness is not fully understood. Relatively few studies have systematically addressed the goals of growth-management approaches, their implementation pathways and spatial outcomes. Most available work has been carried out as single case studies which hampers solid understanding. In this paper, we first outline the challenge in understanding the role of growth management approaches in land conversions. Then we propose research to focus on: a) comprehending the intended outcomes of growth management, and b) the effectiveness of growth management. We argue that future research in this regard will enable researchers to establish causal links between growth management and land conversions.

Fragmentation is a complex issue and the way it is framed will impact on policy decisions. The Czech Republic has adopted several strategic policy documents in spatial planning and environmental domains that address fragmentation. However, these documents differ in how they frame fragmentation. Our goal was to evaluate the differences in 1) framing the problem of fragmentation and 2) suggested solutions. We performed a content analysis of the strategic policy documents by coding text using the key fragmentation aspects - biological organization, land cover, and connectivity. Next, we categorized data either to species-oriented, pattern-oriented, or ecosystem service frames and suggested criteria to evaluate the quality of the framing. This method was useful to show the divergence in the framing of fragmentation as a problem between two policy domains. The results show that the pattern-oriented frame and mitigation solutions are the most prominent aspects, and also fragmentation is not well framed.

Studies have shown that spatial information on abandoned land could play an important role in urban land management, as land abandonment was proven capable of revealing future trajectories of change. However, mapping land abandonment with traditional methods (e.g., field work, digitization of aerial images) can be time consuming, expensive, and require considerable man-power. In this context, Landsat imagery proves to be a reliable source of data. To our knowledge, the potential of Landsat imagery for mapping abandoned land has not been tested in heterogeneous and highly fragmented urban settings. The aim of our paper is to propose a resource-efficient (i.e., in terms of time and manpower) method for the assessment of land abandonment in areas affected by urban sprawl, by using seasonal time series of Landsat data. Bucharest, Romania was chosen as case study area. Landsat scenes from the year 2013 are grouped based on vegetation phenology into four PGSs (periods of the growing season). NDVI values corresponding to land abandonment are analyzed with Classification and Regression Trees. A total of 23 models – representing combinations of PGSs – are tested in order to determine what period of the vegetation growing season fits best for mapping abandoned land, and for the purpose of deriving such a map for Bucharest. Finally, results are validated against independent data and a resource estimation for the entire mapping process is performed. Results show that abandoned land can be mapped with Landsat imagery with accuracies above 80%. Higher accuracies are obtained when scenes encompassing the beginning of the vegetation growing season are included in the models. We also observed that accuracy tends to decrease from models which include PGSs representing the beginning of the vegetation growing season towards those representing the end. Estimation showed that mapping land abandonment with Landsat data could reduce time and workforce resources by almost half compared with aerial imagery and field work. As our method is rapid, easy to implement, and based on freely available data, it can be used by local authorities that cannot allocate significant resources for land change monitoring. Furthermore, the approach could provide objective information to municipalities where official statistics on land abandonment are unreliable or of low quality.

Strategic spatial planning is increasingly practised throughout the world to develop a coordinated vision for guiding the medium- to long-term development of urban regions. However, from a theoretical and conceptual perspective, strategic spatial planning is hard to grasp, as it is multidimensional, embedded in sociopolitical and institutional complexity and highly context-dependent. Moreover, current planning debates mainly focus on the outputs of the strategic planning process while largely neglecting the impact that strategic spatial plans can have on urban transformations. Here, we show an empirically-based analytical framework grounded on an analysis of 21 European urban regions, representing the key components of plan-making and plan-implementation as well as the main interrelationships among them. The proposed framework (SPlaMI) reflects current planning practices and intends to contribute towards consolidating a European understanding of strategic spatial planning while providing the basis for dialogue with broader discourses on sustainable development in a global context.

Urban land and rural land are typically represented as homogenous and mutually exclusive classes in land change analyses. As a result, differences in urban land use intensity, as well as mosaic landscapes combining urban and rural land uses are not represented. In this study we explore the distribution of urban land and urban land use intensity in Europe and the changes therein. Specifically, we analyze the distribution of built-up land within pixels of 1 km². At that resolution we find that most built-up land is distributed over predominantly non-built-up pixels. Consistently, we find that most urban land use changes between 2000 and 2014 come in small incremental changes, rather than sudden large-scale conversions from rural to urban land. Using urban population densities, we find that urban land use intensity varies strongly across 1 km² pixels in Europe, as illustrated by a coefficient of variation of 85%. We found a similarly high variation between urban population densities for most individual countries and within areas with the same share of built-up land. Population changes have led to different combinations of urban land expansion and urban intensity changes in different study periods (1975–1990, 1990–2000, and 2000–2015) and countries. These findings suggest that land use change models could be improved by more nuanced representations of urban land, including mosaic classes and different urban land use intensities.

To date land-change science has devoted little attention to spatial policy and planning in urban landscapes despite the widely accepted premise that planning affects urban land change. This is primarily due to lack of relevant data and an underdeveloped theoretical understanding regarding the impact of spatial planning on urban land change. To be able to better analyse the role of spatial planning in urban development we need to distinguish: 1) the intentions expressed in the plans; 2) the means of implementation of the plans through governance processes and 3) the role of external conditions influencing implementation. Based on a synthesis of the current literature on how spatial planning is implemented in land-change models, and drawing from the literature on planning evaluation, we sketch a research agenda to further develop the understanding of these three components and their interconnections as well as their application in quantitative land-change modelling approaches for urban regions.

Cities undergoing climate change and rapid urbanization are faced with significant transformational processes that affect the environment and society, challenging them to become more sustainable and resilient. The promotion of nature-based solutions represents an efficient approach to meet sustainability targets in cities and improve the quality of life of citizens. The association of large components of green infrastructure, such as urban parks, with physical activity can counteract the sedentary lifestyle endemic to cities and improve the overall health and well-being of individuals (Carrus et al., 2013; Scopelliti et al., 2016). By promoting a sustainable means of transport and connecting green spaces within a highly urbanized city, bicycle lanes represent an effective tool for associating physical activity with nature in cities allowing bicycle users to benefit from the positive health effects of nature-based solutions. Our study focuses on the potential of bicycle lanes to improve functional connectivity among green spaces. We administered 820 questionnaires in 34 green spaces (i.e., urban parks) in Bucharest, Romania, to identify the factors influencing the use of bicycle lanes connecting urban parks and to understand which planning criteria for bicycle lanes are considered as the most important by park visitors. We applied binary and ordinal logistic regressions and found that the factors affecting bicycle lane use are illegally parked cars and lack of accessibility to urban parks. The criteria preferred by park visitors for bicycle lane planning are determined by experience level and frequency of bicycle use. To develop a functional and integrated bicycle lane network that can make cities healthier and more sustainable, policy makers are advised to engage in a public participatory process and focus on the needs of bicycle users.

The future development of urban regions is frequently envisioned through strategic spatial plans. The main objectives and means of spatial development contained in these documents, called planning intentions, can be fragmented and are commonly presented throughout the planning document in text, graphs, tables, diagrams, and maps. Presentation of the information rarely allows for clear visualization of each planning intention and of how the synthesis of all planning intentions builds an overall spatial development strategy. In this paper, we present a method to translate planning intentions into maps in order to better understand their spatiality. Focusing on the case study of Copenhagen, we conduct an analysis of the content of the urban region's latest strategic spatial plan (i.e., the Fingerplan 2013) in order to identify the main planning intentions. For each of these planning intentions, we systematically collect all information contained in the plan, such as details on location, extent, and fuzziness. We then transform the main planning intentions into pixel-based maps to visualize the planning intentions. Finally, a map of the composite planning intention is presented. This paper contributes to a better understanding of the spatiality of strategic planning.

The evaluation of spatial planning results, or outcomes, has been rather neglected by scholars and practitioners. The causes of this neglect are linked to the characteristics of the planning systems in use or difficulties in quantifying results. To advance the state of the art of outcome evaluation, this paper focuses on assessing the implementation of national spatial planning objectives in urban landscapes through the use of an evaluation framework, which makes use of spatially explicit information. The framework is built around four dimensions, which reflect the main domains of spatial planning: efficient built-up development, conservation of agricultural land, landscape preservation and human perception. Indicators that are capable of capturing landscape changes in both time and space are used to verify the degree of conformance between adopted objectives and actual development patterns. We make use of spatially explicit data, as well as assess whether and where landscape changes occurred, by integrating the framework into a multi-criteria analysis. In the present study, the framework is tested in two study areas located in Switzerland and Romania, while the results are interpreted from the perspective of spatial planning approaches in the two countries. The efficiency and utility of the framework are demonstrated by the ability to provide valuable information that facilitates improvement in the performance of planning processes, such as identifying where the implementation of objectives is less effective, and the domains of affected spatial planning. Our findings indicate that the distance between objectives and outcomes can be attributed to differences in countries' spatial planning approaches, which should also be placed into the wider economic, institutional and legislative context. Our study provides valuable insights for the integration of time series of spatial data into the evaluation procedure.

Les plans directeurs communaux sont des instruments centraux de l'aménagement local, et leur emploi a considérablement augmenté au cours des dernières décennies. Dans le contexte actuel marqué par les enjeux de la densification urbaine, il est probable que leur utilisation va encore se généraliser ces prochaines années. Pour accompagner cette évolution, il est primordial d'évaluer la qualité et l'utilité des plans déjà en place, afin de proposer des pistes concrètes pour renforcer la planification directrice communale. Cet article s'inscrit dans cette perspective et présente un aperçu de la qualité et de l'utilité d'une quarantaine de plans directeurs communaux. Il présente également un protocole destiné à l'évaluation ciblée des plans directeurs qui peut être librement téléchargé par les responsables communaux et cantonaux intéressés.

An increasing number of subnational government bodies mandate municipalities to establish a vision for their future development with a local plan. Outside the U.S., few studies have assessed whether these mandates succeed at increasing formal quality, policy focus and implementation of local plans. In addition, the reasons that prompt governments to impose mandates remain unclear. To tackle these issues, we used a multi-method approach combining interviews, plan content analysis and questionnaires to compare mandated and voluntary planning in Switzerland. Our analysis reveals that mandates only have limited impact on local plans. In particular, they do not produce higher quality plans than voluntary planning and do not improve implementation of policies. Our results may imply that (a) planning mandates from subnational governments are ineffective in general or (b) Swiss mandates in particular entail too few requirements and enforcement mechanisms to show a clear effect. Further studies could explore this issue empirically by comparing the characteristics of different planning mandates and assessing their effect on the quality and implementation of local plans. Alternatively, future research efforts could also examine how to find a compromise between mandated and voluntary planning in order to increase local commitment towards plan making.

Local plans are key components of municipal planning and scholars have developed methodologies to evaluate them. However, the purpose and use of local plans may vary, making their evaluation challenging, especially in comparative studies. In this context, existing evaluation methodologies that target local plans do not always account for the purpose of plans when evaluating their quality. Moreover, it is still unclear whether high-quality plans are better implemented than plans of lower quality. In this paper, we propose an integrated evaluation approach that links plan quality to implementation. To assess plan quality, we developed a flexible framework that accounts for the fact that local plans may present different characteristics according to their purpose. The framework rests on the analysis of the communication- and action-oriented dimensions of plans, and a system of coordinates that enables the classification of plans into four types (i.e. visions, blueprints, communicative policy acts, and basic plans) according to the score on each dimension. Plan implementation, assessed as conformance and performance, is determined based on the perception of local planners. Our approach and framework are applied to a set of 37 Swiss local plans. The approach is presented in a transparent way and requires basic numeracy skills, making it accessible to scholars and planning practitioners. Findings may be used to guide municipalities towards enhancing the quality of plans and identify best practices.

Urban green infrastructure is considered to be a key element in improving quality of life and creating an appropriate framework for sustainable cities. The most used quantitative indicator to assess urban green infrastructure is urban green space (UGS) per capita. This papers aim is to analyze whether UGS is a valuable target to achieve cities' sustainability goals. We used Romania as a case study, which should meet the target of 26 m² of UGS per inhabitants in all cities. Aerial images were used to extract the surface of the UGS categories for a sample of 38 cities in Romania. We compared our data with three other databases (National Institute of Statistics, Environmental Protection Agencies and Urban Atlas) to check for differences. To understand the contribution of geographic and socio-economic factors to the dynamic of the UGS per capita in Romania’s cities, we used a multiple linear regression. To identify differences between cities in terms of their proportions of UGS, multiple correspondence analysis was performed. We found significant differences between the surface of UGS reported by the administrative offices and that resulting from the spatial analysis. The process of reporting UGS data currently has methodological and perspective shortcomings. Moreover, the density of the built-up space, the proximity to major transport infrastructure, the cities' founding period and the geomorphology criteria are important predictors for the UGS. The target of 26 mm² of green area per inhabitant in all Romanian cities is not feasible and it should consider the cities' characteristics, if you want to achieve sustainability goals. Urban green planning should focus more on the development of urban green infrastructure models that are adapted to each type of urban area.

In former socialist countries, as cities expanded they permeated into nearby agricultural areas. The periphery then became a mosaic of built-up and agricultural patches. Due to small sizes, inconvenient shapes and scattered locations, the parcels often became unprofitable for agricultural use, and were later abandoned and frequently transformed into built-up areas. Our paper aims to assess whether agricultural land abandonment can be considered a valid precursor of built-up development. The periphery of Bucharest was chosen as the study area, and analyzed over a period of 11 years (2002-2013) based on data sets derived from aerial images. Logistic regression models were used to test whether land abandonment was a significant explanatory variable of built-up development along with other socio-economic, land use, and urban planning variables. The results showed that land abandonment has the potential to be considered a precursor of built-up development. It acts within a cause and effect framework, being influenced by ongoing economic transformations, and changes in urban regulations. Its addition as an explanatory variable in a built-up prediction model significantly increased the prediction power, which makes it a useful variable in urban land use change scenarios. The type of observed abandonment at the periphery of urban areas follows a different pathway compared to land abandonment observed in remote or rural areas. Here, land abandonment is the result of anticipated higher profits through new economic opportunities and urbanization. Monitoring of abandoned land and urban sprawl could enable local authorities to evaluate the outcomes of planning policies and economic incentives.

Landscape fragmentation is one of the consequences of increased socio-economic pressure facing many regions of the world today. The European Environment Agency published an assessment of fragmentation in 2011 on the scale of the entire continent, based on the effective mesh size. In this report, Romania is mentioned as an interesting case, and it is hypothesized that the true level of fragmentation was underestimated. The aim of the present study is to investigate this hypothesis. We chose Romania's Southern Carpathians as a case study, digitized the roads from orthophoto maps and calculated the effective mesh size. Results support the hypothesis formulated in the EEA report. Specifically, our results indicated an effective mesh size of approximately 50 km², which is comparable to other Eastern European countries, whereas the EEA reported an effective mesh size of approximately 1700 km², which is comparable to the values in Scandinavian countries. To our knowledge, this is the first time that hypotheses stated in an EEA report have been tested against local data. The analyses demonstrate the potential of local data to refine analyses realized at a European level. Because our study area faces increased pressure from local roads for forestry and recreation, accurate fragmentation results are crucial. Our results may help planners to ensure that road development is sustainable and biodiversity conserved.